Hugh Gough

Recorded sideUnited Kingdom

Recorded resultvictory

British victory, and the last major action of the First Opium War.

It worked strategically before it worked tactically: taking Chinkiang cut the Caoyun grain transport system at its junction. ⚠ WHAT THAT CAUSED IS CONTESTED AND THE ATLAS TAKES NO POSITION. The common account, including the reference works this entry first rested on, is that the fall of the city forced the Daoguang emperor to sue for peace. A specialist reading (Mao Haijian, The Qing Empire and the Opium War) is reported to place an imperial concession of Hong Kong and the ports on 16 July, BEFORE the canal was cut on the 17th and before the city fell on the 21st — which would make the artery strike a determinant of TERMS AND SPEED rather than of willingness. This atlas has not opened Mao and does not adjudicate. The garrison had already been told what surrender meant elsewhere: Hailing's bannermen killed their own families and then themselves rather than be taken.

What followed

The last major action of the First Opium War. ⚠ THE ATLAS NO LONGER ASSERTS THAT IT ENDED THE WAR BY LOGISTICS — see the contested sequence above; that claim was entered on 2026-08-29 and put into dispute the same day. ⚠ IT DOES CONNECT TWO LANES THE ATLAS KEPT SEPARATE. Hugh Gough commanded here, and became Commander-in-Chief India in August 1843; six of his battles in this atlas are the Anglo-Sikh wars. The man who bombarded for two and a half hours before committing infantry at Gujrat in 1849 took this city in 1842, and the link is derived from a shared commander id rather than asserted.

Recorded sideBritish East India Company

Recorded resultvictory

British victory, costly and confused.

It barely did. The action ran into darkness, British units fired into each other, and Gough's preference for the bayonet over the gun cost him men he did not need to lose. What decided it was that Lal Singh - the Sikh commander, and in secret communication with the British - broke off and withdrew with the battle undecided.

What followed

The opening battle of the First Anglo-Sikh War, and the first appearance of the pattern that runs through the whole war: a Khalsa army that fights extremely well under commanders who do not want it to win.

Recorded sideBritish East India Company

Recorded resultvictory

British victory, and by the account of the men who won it the narrowest of the century in India.

On the evidence, it should not have. The British spent the night of 21-22 December inside a captured entrenchment under Sikh artillery, disordered, short of ammunition, with the Governor-General destroying state papers against the possibility of defeat. On the morning of the 22nd Tej Singh brought a fresh and uncommitted Sikh army onto the field, made a demonstration, and withdrew it. The British position was saved by the enemy commander leaving.

What followed

⚠ THE ENTRY THE LANE EXISTS FOR. The Khalsa's own commanders, Lal Singh and Tej Singh, were in communication with the British before and during the war. Ferozeshah is the case where an army in a winning position was removed from the field by the man commanding it. The engagement idiom fits it as poorly as it fits Plassey, and for the same reason - and unlike Plassey, the army in question fought superbly. Two entries in this atlas, ninety years and one subcontinent apart, are decided the same way.

Recorded sideBritish East India Company

Recorded resultvictory

British victory, and the end of the First Anglo-Sikh War.

The Sikh army was entrenched on the wrong bank with one bridge. Tej Singh left the field early, crossed, and the bridge was damaged or cut behind him; the boats went. What followed was not a rout but a massacre of men who could not withdraw and would not surrender. Sham Singh Attariwala, who had had no part in the negotiations, put on white, told his men he would not leave, and was killed in the entrenchment with them.

What followed

The destruction of the Khalsa as a field army, and the Treaty of Lahore on 8 March 1846. ⚠ The atlas holds Sobraon and Aliwal three weeks apart for a reason: same army, same war, same enemy, and two entirely different mechanisms of defeat. Sham Singh Attariwala is the counter-example that keeps the treachery finding honest - the Sikh command was not uniformly compromised, and the man who was not compromised died on the position.

Recorded sideBritish East India Company

Recorded resultwithdrew from the crossing, having failed to force it

Inconclusive. The Sikhs gave up the east bank but held the crossing and the British attack failed at cost; both sides claimed it.

Gough moved before dawn expecting to surprise a crossing and found the position held on both banks and on an island in between. British cavalry pursuing into deep sand near the water were caught by guns they could not reach and lost heavily for nothing gained. The ground did the damage.

What followed

The opening engagement of the Second Anglo-Sikh War, and a useful corrective: the war that ended in annexation opened with a British failure. ⚠ Recorded as inconclusive rather than resolved, because the two sides were counting different things - the British counted the bank they gained, the Sikhs the crossing they kept.

Recorded sideBritish East India Company

Recorded resultheld the field

Tactically indecisive and among the most disputed results in the atlas. The British held the ground and lost four colours, several guns and roughly 2,300 men; the Sikhs withdrew intact and claimed the day.

Nothing worked. Gough attacked into thick scrub in the afternoon without adequate artillery preparation - his standing preference, and the thing he was repeatedly criticised for - and the scrub dissolved the British line into separate unsupported actions. Units lost direction, some broke, colours were taken. The Sikh gunners fought their pieces to the end. The British stayed on the ground and could do nothing with it.

What followed

⚠ THE ATLAS TAKES NO POSITION ON WHO WON, AND THAT IS THE ENTRY. The news reached London as a disaster and cost Gough his command - Charles Napier was sent to replace him and arrived after the war was over. It is the strongest case in the lane against reading a result off possession of the field: the side that held the ground lost the colours, the guns, the men and the general.

Recorded sideBritish East India Company

Recorded resultvictory

Decisive British victory. The Punjab was annexed on 29 March 1849.

Because Gough was finally made to fight the battle his army was equipped for. Under pressure after Chillianwala he opened with a two-and-a-half-hour artillery bombardment and did not send the infantry in until the Sikh guns had been beaten down. The casualty ratio between Chillianwala and Gujrat - 757 British dead against 96, five weeks apart, same general, same enemy - is the whole argument about his tactics, settled by his own two battles.

What followed

The end of the Sikh Empire and of independent Punjab. ⚠ It is also the atlas's cleanest natural experiment in command: one general, one army, one enemy, five weeks, and the only variable changed is whether the guns were used first. Nothing else in the atlas isolates a tactical choice that cleanly.